TMNT: Saviour
by princessebee
Summary: 2k14verse. Raphril. He had lost count of all those to whose aid he had come over the years. But there were still so many more... could he let them go long enough to be saved himself?


There was a sickening crack, a strangled cry and the thump of a body hitting the pavement like a sack of wet cement.

Raphael did not wait to see what happened next; he knew the thug wasn't getting back up. In three swift, powerful movements he was halfway up the fire escape, only then pausing in the shadows to glance downwards and check on the woman below.

She stood there, silent and trembling, her hands up to her mouth as she gazed down at the crumpled body lying in a heap at her feet. She was dressed in a gold playsuit, cut high on her thighs and over her butt, halter-necked and backless. Not nearly enough for the bitterly cold night; even at that distance he could see the wind bit goose pimples in waves across her flesh, though that wasn't the reason she shivered. They all dressed like that, the girls up in the East Village, as they trailed in arm-linked clusters from bar to bar, heedless of the weather. They never seemed to notice or care how cold it was, as though their youth and beauty repelled the elements whilst they clattered the streets in peals of defiant laughter, brazen and invincible.

After a moment, she turned unsteadily on her towering gold stilettos, the heels so thin they wobbled beneath her weight, and tottered back towards the main streets, where life continued to surge and pulse. Where she would be swept back into the heat and the light and forget how close she had been to becoming a statistic.

Where she would convince herself that it was just a man who had come to her aid; that the green skin and bulky shell were tricks of the shadows, illusions conjured by the drugs coursing in her blood stream.

He watched after her for a moment, one powerful arm suspending his weight, until she disappeared around the alley corner, then clambered easily the rest of the way to the roof, continuing his patrol.

The East Village sprawled out around him, thin cracks of pitch black crookedly bordering patches of vibrant light, the thrum of music and traffic and shrieking human voices rising in constant waves. He paused to prop one foot up on the ledge that bordered the roof, surveying the landscape and considering his next move.

The triumphant buzz of the thwarted assault was quickly abating, giving way to a nervous, restless anxiety as it always did. So close. Goddamn it, so close. If he had crossed the alley just a few minutes earlier, he would've missed them and that girl would be – god only knows what, by now.

At that very moment a thousand similar atrocities were unfolding all around him, unseen and unheard. Unwitnessed. Unstopped.

Lives were being forever altered.

Possessions stolen. Bodies violated.

Hearts broken. Hope shattered. Spirits crushed.

"Fuck."

He went into a crouch on the ledge, the burden of choice seeming to bear down on him from above as though the Shredder's armoured foot was once again crushing his shell. This time he felt the pressure across his chest, an unbearable tightness that gathered quickly around his heart so that his blood beat hard in his temples. The icy wind lashed at his scales, his fingers and toes growing numb, his lips stinging with the chill, but he barely noticed. He stared out across the urban jungle, his amber eyes relentlessly searching until they went dry and raw and he shut them.

The first time had been an accident. He'd been defying the rules, as usual, drawn to the surface, where the whole wide world beckoned. The constant rumble of traffic, the incessant trampling of feet, the steady hum of voices talking, shouting, singing, screaming – it lured him irresistibly towards it, the melody of the city like a siren song to his curious ears. Just crouching there in the alleyway was a transformative experience; all around him he could feel the vibrations of the city reach out and seem to pluck at his skin, tugging him this way and that, the endless energy of life in all its filthy glory seeming to know he was there and finally amongst it. He had known in that instant that he belonged to it. He was a freak and an outcast and the world could never know of his existence, but it was to the city he belonged, all the same. Only within her concrete depths could he at once take part and yet remain hidden. Only in that thriving jumble of agonised life did his own conflicted heart seem to make sense.

All he had wanted to do was watch. To see life as it really was, beyond the celluloid glow of the television screen. He had no other thought in mind as he stole quietly through alleyways and scaled buildings, peering over rooftops to watch in grim fascination as the hopeless and hapless played out their petty dramas in glorious three-dimension, accompanied by the stink of the streets and too many hot bodies pressed too close together. He had never anticipated what came next.

They'd been finishing business when he had come across them, in one dank alley that stank of piss and garbage, lit only by a cold sliver of light from a street lamp just around the bend. He'd hesitated guiltily on the crumbling window ledge above them, captivated despite himself by the unmistakeable sounds; the man's fervent grunting and the woman's soft moans, which even to his inexperienced ears sounded false and insincere. They were engulfed in the darkness below him, the shifting of shadows and that rhythmic noise all that marked their existence.

They'd finished and he'd decided to wait until they'd gone before continuing on, not quite trusting to his stealth skills now that they were no longer so distracted. There had been the whispering rustle of clothing rearranged, a murmured word or two and the hiss of a lighter and then the shadows were split with the red sliver of a flame and he caught sight of her face illuminated in the glow as she lit her cigarette and she couldn't have been any more than sixteen – the same age he was.

A moment later when the sound of the mug's fist striking the soft tissue of her face echoed unexpectedly clear in the darkness as he punched her then grabbed her purse, Raphael had reacted without thinking.

He'd dropped down from the ledge in front of the mug as he ran from the hooker he had just robbed and stopped him with a single, brutal blow, the crack of bone beneath his knuckles sending adrenaline soaring through his bloodstream.

The mug had hit the ground and didn't move. Raphael didn't bother to check his pulse as he retrieved the purse from the heap of meat and clothing, still nothing but too furious to care.

The girl had got to her feet and staggered forward into the light, blood streaming from her nostrils, and through the haze of his rage he had felt alarm lance through him and took two or three steps back further into the shadows. She had called out, a weak "hey" from where she had sprawled on the cement when the mug had taken up running, but then fallen silent as the muffled noises that emanated from the darkness signalled something was wrong.

Now she stood there, squinting into the gloom, her brows creased with fear and her full lips slack. He stared back at her from where he hovered, concealed, her purse clutched in one great hand and her attacker lying with a dislocated jaw at his feet. She was beautiful, a young black girl with natural hair and a spray of dark freckles across her nose. A teenager, like him. No older than he was.

"Hey?" she called out tremulously, a hand lifting to wipe away the blood that pooled on her upper lip, just smearing it further out across her cheek and he felt his chest constrict to see it, felt his heart skip to see how her lip trembled. She wanted to run but she wanted her purse. Her earnings were in her purse.

Silently, he'd tossed the purse from the shadows and she'd skittered backwards with a whimper. It hit the pavement with a dull clunk and she'd stared at it uncomprehendingly for a long moment while he stared at her. Then he'd turned and taken a running leap for the fire escape and she'd heard the skid of his heels in the dust and came darting forward, her head turning from side to side, searching the darkness.

"Hey, thanks!" he heard her call out after him. "Thank you!"

When he'd hit the roof he had taken off running, heart roaring in his veins, his pulse a thundering beat in his head. Rooftop after rooftop he leapt over, clambering higher, ever higher, until his breath scraped his throat raw and the heat of his skin boiled his sweat where it beaded.

He'd stopped, heaving and gasping, his mind running with a manic parade of images, each one eliciting a conflicted tug from his heart. The rutting sounds of sex. The swing of a fist in the dark. Her bloodied nose. What kind of coward hit a girl like that, stole her purse, tried to make off with her money – money he'd just paid her. His fury begin to flood him rapidly once more and he took vicious pleasure in knowing the asshole wouldn't be eating solid foods for a while, rubbing a calloused palm over the fist that had stopped him, the memory of those crunching bones making him shiver with satisfaction.

But the girl – that beautiful girl with her fearful dark eyes, who wasn't any older than he was – would she be all right?

How many more like her were there?

That night he'd dreamed of her, dreamed that he'd stepped out of the shadows to hand her back her purse and she had not flinched or run screaming but stepped forward to take it with a smile, her eyes admiring and awed as she gazed up at him.

And so it began.

Five years later he had lost count of all those to whose aid he had come. Funny, for all his ambivalence and distrust towards the human race that it should be he of all his brothers who carried on this secret life, sharing with no one the grim vindication he got from laying waste to those who would prey on others, keeping it sacred and his alone, each relieved smile and grateful utterance to the shadows where he vanished a balm to his furious heart, soothing the raw anger that festered there at all the ugly brutality of the world.

But it never lasted. And every night – and there were many – he was unable to go to the surface and patrol, was a night he lay awake and tormented, a grotesque slideshow looping relentlessly through his head of all the horror he would not be able to stop that night.

His cellphone vibrated, startling him out of his reverie and he fumbled it out of the pouch on his belt, numbed fingertips stinging as they flexed. It was April.

"Hey," he grunted, surveying the streets around him with a practiced eye, his thoughts flickering back to that girl in gold and wondering if she'd got back to the mainstreet okay.

"Hey!" April's voice was light, cheery and he wondered how she could sound so carefree when the whole world boiled around them. "You still coming over?"

_Shit. _"Yeah, you bet. Fuck, what time is it?" A siren wailed a few blocks away and he turned his head towards the sound, searching for the flash of red light reflecting off brick. It was too far away.

She paused for a moment, then spoke in a tight voice that signalled she wasn't impressed at having been forgotten.

"It's ten. And I have to work tomorrow."

"I'll be right there. Twenty minutes. " The wind whipped over him, lacerating his skin and he stood upright and stamped his feet against the dusty roof.

"Okay," she sounded mollified, and then a little uncertain and understanding at once. "It's okay if you can't, you know. Just… you know, tell me."

"I'm comin', O'Neil. Just got caught up." In the street below, a stray cat was startled from its perch on a flight of steps by the emergence of a young couple from a crumbling rowhouse, leaning on each other and laughing as they made their way to the main streets.

"Good," she sounded pleased again. "Can't wait."

"Me too. See ya soon."

Raphael hung up his phone and jammed it back into his pouch. Goddamnit. How had that happened? He'd set out at eight for April's place. Had no plans to patrol that night. But somehow…

The wind howled in his ears and ripped ribbons from his flesh as he made his way over the rooftops towards April's apartment, breath freezing before him and eyes smarting from the sting, his mind turning restlessly over those he had encountered that evening. First, the old man being mugged by a trio of punks. That had been what had started it – another accident, he hadn't been looking. But he couldn't very well just go on by.

And that had enlivened the sick skittering of his heart as he had contemplated the city streets from above, half-turned in her direction but looking back over his shoulder as though a hook had caught him beneath the chin, yanking him towards the sprawling net of neon light and gold.

Then it had been the black woman with two frightened young girls clutching her hands, pursued and loudly harassed by a couple of skin heads in boots and braces. He'd really enjoyed taking those assholes down and she hadn't looked back, just hurried her children away to safety.

The trans hooker with the mammoth fake breasts had jumped up and down cheering when he laid into the drunken louts who'd thrown eggs and glass bottles at her. She'd seen too much of him but he knew she was high, knew no one would listen to her anyway.

And the girl in gold.

Always the girls.

Always the girls who tumbled through his dreams afterwards, lipsticked mouths smiling, thick lashed eyes fluttering as they cooed their thanks and in his dreams he stayed to hear it, stayed to let them approach, sashay up to him and gaze directly up into his face without fear or revulsion. Always the girls who laid soft hands on his arms and smiled up at him with gratitude as they said_ thank you, thank you so much, if it hadn't been for you…_

… always in his dreams the girls he had hid from, run from, who he watched from above for just long enough to ensure they were all right and could continue on their way before he moved on his, always in his dreams he discovered them seared indelibly into his memory, his yearning mind recollecting them in infinite, precise detail, chapped lips and dark roots, fingers jammed with rings, glasses perched on upturned noses, tattoos and piercings and freckles and pimples and skin unmarked by anything at all. Short, curvy and dark or slim, fair and tall or any other of endless configurations, hair growing untamed or carefully styled, skin in a thousand hues from dark as earth to pale as sand, eyes flashing brilliant and bright. In his dreams that night they always flared bright and vivid long enough for him to stay and let them approach, let them see him, and in his dreams they were never afraid and never horrified; they were only grateful.

When he woke, they were gone, their vibrant smiling faces melting into the drab pall of reality and his heart would be painfully thumping and he would despise himself for this betrayal, that unconscious indulgence in a foolish childishness that felt uncomfortably like hope.

After that, he would struggle to recall anything about them at all beyond the vaguest impression. They dimmed and blurred beneath the fiercer recollections of a thousand bones breaking, blood brightly spurting and the yelping cries of wicked and cowardly men being crushed by his hands, and he let them go like the illusions they were, not chasing them and not fighting, relieved they so easily eluded him as he eluded them in life.

He came to a skidding halt on the roof of April's apartment block, the sheen of perspiration he had built up like a thin layer of ice on his skin. He'd made it there in half the time, as though the troubles of the streets had been on his tail, clutching and clawing at his ankles to drag him back down, back into their depths where he would endlessly battle to keep them at bay.

He dropped silently onto the fire escape and went down the four flights to April's living room window. Just as he reached out a fist to quietly rap, he paused and glanced edgily over his shoulder at the city behind him. The windows that lined the building surrounding him seemed a thousand glittering eyes, all gazing at him reproachfully, and as he hesitated he could almost swear they were closing in around him –

Then there was a rustle from the window and he turned to it just as April yanked open the blinds, her face constricting in surprise to see him hulking there.

Then she was smiling at him, not the ethereal smile of dreams but one bright and real, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she raised the sash to admit him entrance.

"Hey!" she said as she opened the window. "I was just opening the blinds for you. Come in, Jesus, you're freezing!"

He slipped in the window, slammed it shut behind him, then turned on her and pulled her into his arms, leaning her back for a long, deep kiss. She gasped into his mouth as his chilled lips pressed to hers, gently but fervently coaxing her mouth open, his tongue slipping into it as soon as she submitted, finding her own hot, eager one and twining with it. Raphael shut his eyes and kissed her deeper and deeper until there was nothing but the symphony of her taste and feel and smell suffusing his senses, until the clamouring voices of the city and the faceless millions that called to him were drowned out by their heated breath and the pounding of their hearts as they pressed together, the solid, soft warmth of her supported in his muscular embrace an anchor he clung desperately to.

When finally he drew away, they were both breathless and she gazed up at him with flushed cheeks and bright eyes.

"Wow," she gasped. "I guess you _did_ miss me."

Raphael kissed her again, softly, his now-warmed lips pulling gently at her swollen ones. "A little," he admitted offhandedly with the ghost of a smile.

He didn't want to let her go, his hands firm on her waist, his fingertips slipping beneath the hem of her pajama top to test the velvety softness of her skin, pressing his face into the fragrant nest of her hair, rubbing his cheeks against the silken strands as she rested her head against his plastron and stroked his shoulders. She was so real, so alive, so vibrant.

After a moment she pulled back to look up at his face, her brows creased slightly. "You okay?" she queried and he finally released her, stepping back to crack his neck, shrugging.

"Just happy to see ya."

She looked at him searchingly for a moment longer, then padded into the kitchen to switch the kettle on. "Hot chocolate?"

He shot a guilty look at the shuttered window, unable to stop himself pondering what might be happening just blocks away, a street away, on the damn corner…

"Hell yeah."

He stepped to the window and yanked the blinds down, his hand quivering from the tension coiled in his muscles. It was just him and April, locked within those cream walls, and nothing else existed or mattered.

Raphael turned back to her, where she was measuring out powdered chocolate into two mugs, a bag of marshmallows on the counter beside her and his heart lifted a touch at the sight. She glanced over to him and he could see from the careful curiosity in her eyes she knew something was up.

"You were out," she said softly and he lifted his chin in enquiry. "When I called," she clarified as the kettle started to whistle. "You weren't at the lair. You were in the city. I could hear it in the background."

His first impulse was to get defensive, waves of simmering indignation flowing up his plastron. Was she accusing him of something? He grit his jaw and squared his shoulders, ready to give her a brusque reply when she glanced at him again as she poured the water out, and he saw the tender concern in her eye. He sighed, releasing his tension.

"Just somethin' I had to take care of," he offered by way of explanation, reaching up to tug off his mask, scratching his bared scalp as he moved to the couch, unsheathing his sai and clattering them onto the coffee table before he sat down.

April came out from around the counter, two steaming mugs held in her hands.

"Anything you want to talk about?" she asked him, handing him one.

An automatic 'no' had been on his lips as he reached out to take the hot chocolate, but something gave him pause. He had never told any of his brothers about his evening missions across the city, not even after they began their collective retaliation against the Foot. Sure as shit he'd never told Sensei. And there had never been anyone else to tell. It had always been his secret, a duty he had charged himself with and a burden borne alone. He had never expected it could be any other way.

But as April slid onto the couch next to him, her thigh pressing warmly against his, her soft lips blowing at the steam in her mug as she looked at him from worried sapphire eyes, so real and tangible, her beautiful face gazing openly upon his freakish visage, it occurred to him that if he wanted to tell her… he could.

And she would listen.

He cupped the mug, dwarfing it between his massive hands and let the heat flush through his muscles, contemplating the aromatic dark brown liquid clotted with tiny marshmallows. He didn't know if he wanted to tell her yet. Didn't know if he ever would.

But he could.

"Not right now," he said instead and lifted the mug to his lips for a sip, the hot liquid gushing down his throat and sending sparks of warmth from his gut in all directions. It was delicious.

April reached forward and stroked his cheek and he leant into her hand, her hand radiating heat from where she had cupped her own mug, enjoying the softness of her touch on his rough scales, a prelude to the intimacy they would share soon enough. The intimacy his waking mind had never dared imagine he would have; an intimacy he had chased only in his dreams.

"When you're ready," she said with gentle patience and smiled at him lovingly, her brilliant blue eyes sparkling softly in the dim light of her living room, the press of her body against his mooring him to the moment and making it easy for him to forget all else, to let go of the world that unfolded wretchedly beyond, her sheer palpable vitality irresistibly alluring and every perfect detail of her beheld vivid and sharp in his gaze. He knew she would not fade, that she was not an illusion that blinked into his dreamscape only to glimmer out when he opened his eyes

Raphael turned his face to her palm and pressed a kiss against it and in that moment, with her flesh warm and thrumming with life against him, he comprehended that everything he had done for all those people was real, as real and enduring as that moment with her hand against his face and he set his mug aside and let himself sink down until his cheek rested against her breasts and her arms were around him, fingertips stroking gently his scalp as he breathed her in, her heart beating a comforting lull against his ear and he knew that though beyond those walls the world would churn on, he had done all that he could. And that night he would not dream of the girl in gold.


End file.
